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tv   Andrea Mitchell Reports  MSNBC  October 7, 2011 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT

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marks the tenth naemps of the war in afghanistan. >> i was in sixth grade when all this kicked off. it wasn't a really big deal to me because i was like ten years old? but to people that were older and probably more mature back then it probably means a lot to them today. especially if they're still in the armed services and everything. but to me it really doesn't mean anything. just another day in afghanistan. >> another day in afghanistan. ten days later. good day, i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. we'll get to afghanistan in a moment first republicans are on the offensive today using the latest economic report to push back against the president's jobs plan. majority leader eric cantor says that white house proposal is more of the same. >> if nothing else, president obama's solution to job creation has been consistent. he believes the best policy is to increase taxes on small business men and women instead of actually fixing the problems.
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this president and his team continue to kick the can down the road. >> msnbc contributor and managing editor is here with us or our daily fix. chris, we saw in fact an extraordinary amount of fighting in the last couple of days. last night on the senate floor, eric cantor and john boehner today. what about these numbers? the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1, and 103,000 new jobs created but a good portion of them, 45,000 i think from the verizon. >> we knew last month the august report it was zero but we knew the verizon workers were going back. so a little artificially low that time. a little artificially higher this time. this is an obama administration looking for a scintilla of good news on the economy. i think this buys them a little bit of time but it's nowhere just seeing it from a political perspective, it is nowhere near in fact it's about 45% of what they need to get that unemployment rate under 8% by november 2012.
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the simple reality, that's not going to happen. it's why you've seen the president shift his rhetoric of late to say yes, things are bad. i'm hopeful they're getting better. but at least i'm trying. and that i think is what you're going to see. republicans aren't trying. that's going to be the message that he hopes will sell. it is a message born of necessity, i would add. the obama administration would love unemployment to be on a steady decrease. it's just not. >> and we now know that dates are set for iowa. at least we know concerns also with the des moines register and the ap reporting january 3rd. >> january 3rd iowa caucuses. why is this important? because when nevada started january 14th they said they were going to have their caucuses. that meant the way these things work with new hampshire and iowa both will go before nevada, we could have been looking at a late december -- yes, december of this year, 6 1/2 weeks from now, two months from now, a vote in december. we're probably not -- it seems like this is going forward january 3rd. now the state to watch is new
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hampshire. what do they do? we have -- does he fit within that window or say i'm not going to accept iowa on january 3 because i want more space between nevada and new hampshire. >> to be continued. >> major. >> chris, thank you. and that new september jobs report is somewhat good but not good enough. despite the addition of 103,000 jobs, the unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.1% as we've been saying. 14 million people remain unemployed. the secretary of labor joins us now. madam secretary, thank you very much. >> good afternoon. >> so positive numbers compared to expectations. but still you would be the first to admit as would the president, i think, not enough to keep up with population growth. and we've still got a major problem of unemployment in this country. and protests growing around the country. >> you know, andrea, i also want to make a little note here that in the last two months there was
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a readjustment. we actually saw more jobs added in those two months, 99,000 jobs were added. so those corrections should be noted. and while 103,000 jobs may not be as many as we need, we are still adding jobs. and since the recovery we have been adding 2.6 million private sector jobs. we know we have to do more. that's why the president's talking about a bipartisan proposal to reduce taxes, to get more disposable income out so people will spend through their payroll tax credits, incentivize and put construction workers back to work as well as teachers and extend the unemployment benefit. all these things are proven to work. they could add up to 1.9 million jobs. that would lower the unemployment rate and help to spur gdp and hopefully investments. >> what do you say to the protestors? there seems to be a real not only a growth of the protests but critical mass is being created out there in the streets
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in atlanta, minnesota, washington, d.c. we're seeing the spread of the anger. and it seems directed at the administration, at wall street, anger over the initial bailouts, over the fact that corporations are sitting on their profits. what do you say to all of these people? >> well, i understand their frustration, andrea, because i've been out there as well. i've heard so many people that continue to look for jobs. that's why we're trying to move very quickly. and the president has said he'd like to have that bill that he pro essed, the american jobs act brought back to him before the end of the month. we can mitigate a lot of this and then move onto long term solutions as well. right now we don't even have the cooperation of folks on the other aisle except to say no, no, no. and they want to somehow say that the campaign is already started. well, to me we've got 13 months here. we still have a lot of people we have to put back to work. and congress has an obligation just like the president does to do something. so where's your plan, congress, if you don't want to support the president's plan? >> that is the question that the administration is certainly
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asking. thank you very much. secretary solis. as these protests are now popping up in cities in atlanta and minnesota, washington, d.c., what are the implications for politics and for public policy? msnbc's rachel maddow is live with us in new york. rachel, you've been out there. you've talked to people. you've been doing interviews on the subject. how do you figure out what this really means? is this a tipping point in our country? is this greece? is this something uniquely american? >> andrea, it's interesting. i think the protesters have taken so much heat for not having a clear organizational structure, for not being an organized like a typical pressure group, for not having a tidy list of demands. but they've been very clear that that's on purpose. and there is a sort of of genius to it. because by remaining a sort of angry but not very specific force, they are allowing everybody else in the country
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who is frustrated with wall street and the current state of the economy to sort of project what they think is important onto those protestors. so everybody who's mad that wall street tore pea doed the economy and the rest of the country is still sunk while wall street is now doing fine and still doing things to gouge the middle class, everybody mad about that can sort of project that feeling onto the protests. it will be interesting to see if they grow. but i think they're an important significant fire even if they don't grow. >> really an rorschach test for the way the debt ceiling crisis in august seemed to exacerbate that according to the polling and anecdotally. this is the way the president and the vice-president reacted to the wall street protests. let's play it. i'm curious as to whether you think they've really captured the importance to what is happening out there. >> people are frustrated, and the protestors are giving voice to a more broad-based
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frustration about how our financial system works. >> the tea party started why? t.a.r.p. they thought it was unfair we're bailing out the big guys. what are the people up there on the other end of the political spectrum saying? the same thing. >> i'm not quite sure what joe biden was trying to do. maybe sort of lasso the passion of these protestors and bring them into the democratic campaign fold as the tea party has certainly energized republicans. interesting analogy. >> well, you look back at the start of modern tea party movement, a lot of different groups have called themselves -- have used the tea party as a sort of analogous reference point. ron paul type protesters were using it long before 2009. but when rick santelli got on the floor of the stock exchange ranting about the bailout, he wasn't talking about t.a.r.p., he was talking about the proposed bailout of individual homeowners getting bailed out from having underwater mortgages because the mortgage system was rigged by the financial
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industry. that was the supposed call from the stock exchange for being -- and it was a call from traders who were angry that regular americans might get bailed out. they were delighted that banks got bailed out. so the tea party again in being sort of disorganized has allowed people to project a lot of different things on it, a lot of different frustrations. the lack of organization, the lack of clarity is a useful thing. because it allows people to use it as a prism for all different sorts of arrange. i think president obama and vice-president biden have been trying to say if you are mad about the economy there's a reason for it. you're not crazy. we're mad about the economy, too. and we are taking on wall street. we are taking on big business interests. and republicans are siding with them. so it's awn focused message. but that allows people to use it for all sorts of different purposes. >> there's a genius in that, too. now let's talk a minute about elizabeth warren and scott brown and the massachusetts race. because they've got noon a dust up. let's play a little bit of the original tape where she was
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asked about scott brown. and he responded. >> to help pay for his law school education scott brown posed for cosmo. how did you pay for your college education? >> i kept my clothes on. [ laughter ] >> have you officially responded to elizabeth warren's comment about how she didn't take her clothes off? >> thank god. [ laughter ] >> now, he's really take an lot of heat for that comment, for the alleged sexism in it. what is your take on this exchange? what it tells us about this race? certainly going to be one of the more entertaining senate races. >> i live in massachusetts, so i'm fascinated by this anyway just as a massachusetts resident. massachusetts has one woman in the congressional delegation. they've elected basically almost zero women over the life of the commonwealth. massachusetts voters don't like to send women to d.c. for some reason. and so i don't know why that is, but there's already an uphill battle there for elizabeth
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warren. but scott brown making a comment like that, particularly with the radio host sort of chort willing into his beer belly over it afterwards really put the sexist point on it. i think may have the effect of rallying women voters to elizabeth warren's cause. listen. the reason when george allen said the mekaka thing when he was running, why that moment lived on for a long time because it tapped into people's worries about sort of racially charged things in george allen's past. had he not had experience, things in his past like a noose in his law office and stuff where people thought racially charged things about him that mekaka thing would have seemed strange. similarly with scott brown this might have seemed a joke gone wrong and joke in the wrong context. but he's got a lot of socially conservative and sort of anti-women's rights things in his past that this tapts into and sort of remind you of and gives it sort of a creep factor. >> and the war in afghanistan i want to ask you about that.
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you've spent so much time there. ten years later we're talking about more than 14,000 u.s. troops wounded, $338 billion. the death toll extraordinary. what do we say about this? 1687 men and women killed. >> andrea, i feel like this is -- the fact that this is ten years now into this war ought to be a time for reflection. i mean, starting wars politically is hard to do in this country. it's maybe not as hard as it ought to be but it's hard to do. turns out that ending wars is politically even harder. and at this point the divorce between civilian american experience and what we have put the military through, what the men and women of our military and their families have been through over the past decade, that chasm, that distance is unprecedented in the american history. we have never before had the military living such different
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lives for so long than the rest of the country. that is unprecedented and new. i think it's a real moral liability for our country as well as being a political liability. and i think it really on this date deserves some debate and some attention. >> the volunteer army had a lot of virtues until we ran two prolonged wars and repeated deployments, five and six deployments for some of these men and women. we're talking about families that are being broken up and post-traumatic stress. the profound distance between those of us who are contributing, those of them i should say who are contributing and the rest of us who are not is just a huge gap. >> it is a huge gap. to have the american domestic economic reaction to starting that second war, to starting the iraq war while we were still staying in afghanistan, the next big policy thing that happened after we started that second war was that we took a second round of tax cuts. there is something wrong with a country that believes that way to respond to starting a second simultaneous war is to make sure that american civilians feel like we're going to be paying
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even less for it. that is a moral problem. i think it also sets us up, actually, for a situation in which we don't get out of our wars easily and we don't get out of our wars that we start and we maybe start too many of them. because we don't acutely as civilians feel the cost of who's going to be on the frontline doing it. troops and their families have lived such a different life for the past decade than your typical american civilian family, that that distance deserves questioning, deserves some interrogation. >> rachel maddow, who's been out there reporting on all of this from the beginning. thank you very much, rachel for coming in. appreciate it. >> and of course rachel's program tonight at 9:00 and every night on msnbc. and up next, the romney doctrine. with the romney campaign advisor former senator norm coleman on what he would do about the war in afghanistan. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc.
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if you do not want america to be the strongest nation on earth i'm not your president. you have that president today. [ applause ] >> tough words for president obama from mitt romney at the citadel as he outlined his foreign policy in south carolina earlier today. former republican senator norm coleman now serving as a policy advisor to the romney campaign and joins us from minnesota. thank you very much. good to see you, senator. >> good to be here, andrea. >> i think especially on this tenth anniversary of the war in afghanistan, i really want to nail down what a president mitt romney would be doing about afghanistan. i want to play a little bit from the june 13th debate in new hampshire and what he said today. >> our troops shouldn't go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation. only the afghanis can win afghanistan's independence from
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the taliban. >> america must lead the world or someone else will. without american leadership, without clarity of american purpose and resolve, the world becomes a far more dangerous place, and liberty and prosperity would surely be among the first casualties. >> on the show yesterday rich williamson from your campaign said that mitt romney believes that president is withdrawing too quickly, too quick a pace, to precipitously was his term from afghanistan. of so what exactly would mitt romney do about this war? when would he start bringing the troops home? >> i think what mitt romney would do is listen to generals on the ground. the decision the president made about withdrawal of troops in september 2012 was done without the consultation or the support of the military. i think general petraeus and admiral mullen have made that clear. there's no question the afghanis have to pick up the fight for their liberty. no question they have to take
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principal responsibility. no question we shed a lot of blood and treasure in afghanistan. but the question is, how do you do it not in a political way but in a right way? so what governor romney has said is i'm going to listen to the commanders on the ground. they've talked about getting troops out through the 2012 fighting season. but president made a political decision. governor romney's not going to make a political decision about the future of afghanistan. he'll listen to the commanders on the ground. in the end there's no question the shift has to be the afghanis. they've got to fight their fight. but how we withdraw has to be done with a way that doesn't waste the blood and treasure that's been so much sacrificed. >> president romney would be the commander in chief. is there any circumstance that you could see him contradicting the generals on the ground? doesn't the person in the oval office have to make that decision whether or not the jerls generals agree? >> the president has to make the decision, but a general -- excuse me a president and a president obama who had no experience, none whatsoever, none whatsoever in dealing with military affairs made a decision that was a political decision.
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that's not how you make decisions. what you heard today from governor romney in his speech was this vision of a new american century. not going to be the chinese century, the russian, the brazilian. he's going to do it in the way in which he's kind of done things in his life. thoughtful, focused, listening to those who have the expertise if he personally doesn't have it and make those decisions. he's going to do it with principals believing america should be the strongest nation on earth. lincoln america last best hope on earth. in issues like afghanistan you've got to listen to troops, the generals on the ground. you don't make political decisions as this president has done. >> norm coleman, former senator, thank you very much speaking for the romney campaign. >> thank you. in the senate, harry reid stirs up a ruckus. the briefing coming next plus a critical day in the trial of michael jackson's doctor. prosecutors are expected to play the interview that police conducted with dr. conrad murray just two days after jackson's
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even veteran senate watchers were surprised by what happened last night. a spar over parliamentary procedures and so much more. >> these things are dilatory and wholly unnecessary in an effort to divert from what we're really trying to do here, and that is legislate. >> no motion to suspend after closure, the minority's out of business. >> martin cady is congressional editor for poe lit co. marlin, what was going on last night? >> the senate's version of wild and crazy times. if you're a c-span junky this is interesting. if you're a pretty regular person, suspend the rules? waive the rules? what are we talking about? americans just want to get the
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job done. basically what happened, harry reid got tired of republicans trying to add a bunch of unrelated amendments on top of this china bill, china kurnsry crackdown. the republicans wanted to add the obama jobs bill knowing it would probably get voted down and look bad for the democrats. mcconnell wanted to add a few other things. reid basically said no, i'm going to try to put an end to this. let's be clear. he didn't end the filibuster. they had already broken the filibuster on this bill in the first place. he made it harder after you break the filibuster to mess things up with amendments. but you know, these are senators. this is the senate. they have a big thick rule book. and they did sort of on the fly by surprise change a couple of these rules last night. >> well, it is the senate. there are a lot of rules. they say they don't want to be like the house. but the contentiousness of the senate is certainly equalling that now of the house. >> yes. >> certainly seems to be a leftover from what happened in august. thank you very much, martin.
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>> thank you. up next, ten years into america's longest war, we are live in afghanistan with a look at where the conflict goes from here. and one of three women to win this year's nobel peace prize today for her work as an active it in her native liberia will be joining us next on "andrea mitchell reports". follow the wings.
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trouble. and even larger percentage have stagnant wages. and a significant majority of the american people believe that country's not moving in the right direction. that is never a good place to be going into re-election. >> joining me now is david gregory, moderator for nbc's "meet the press". david, do you think he was too honest with you? joe biden acknowledging -- the president said they're underdogs. clearly with the jobs number today, 9.1%, even though some improvement on hiring, it's not going to get them where they need to be. they've been very combative. but they know there are a lot of headwinds here. >> they do. and i'm have more of that interview with the vice-president on "meet the press" on sunday. what struck me about it is, he's not trying to sugar coat it. they understand in the white house that historical headwinds are severe against them because of where the economy is. and as much as they spend time and the vice-president is spending time pointing the finger at president bush.
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they now own this economy. in part because they've done some pretty big things to try to make it better and they haven't panned out. the economy is not getting better. it's arguably getting worse or at least it's getting better way too slowly. and so i think that's an acknowledgement where they are. but the other side of that or the additional piece of that as you know is the vice-president saying we're going to create a choice here. the president's taken some big swings at the plate. what's the ore side going to do to really address this fear, this anxiety and all the anger of the american people are feeling? >> interesting that they deployed hillary clinton today to speak out on jobs. the first time they've used the secretary of state in that role trying to make the case for economic improvement. she was there with the whole jobs council. >> well look, in part because let's talk about the financial crisis that really hasn't ended. i just did an interview with michael lewis, the author of "boomer rang" which will be on our blog in which she said the financial crisis never ended. it's now overtaking europe.
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but that has a real impact on our economy here. so it's easy to deploy secretary clinton. we also know she's a popular figure right now and he can use any popular figure he can get, the president, to be able to sell his message about doing something. the government has some remedy to deploy to actually help hiring. and can they paint republicans as the party that just doesn't want to do anything. >> and when we talk about the republican field, that's really shaped up this week with chris christie's decision, sarah palin's anticipated but now it's final decision. and so we see this race is it romney and perry, herman cain showing a lot of strength. we believe perry has the money. 15 million raised. 27 million in the bank. he's got the money to go the distance. >> i think he does. i think he's got the ability to really distinguish himself from romney. he's got to show up here a bit, show up in these debates. he's got to paint a real contrast to romney. but it's still possible to do
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that. 25%. that's the number where romney seems to be stuck among conservatives. no great love there. and there's a lot that hasn't been un-earthed about his record. there's a lot of people in important states who still don't know him. so i think perry is a long way from being out of this thing. and there could be still quite a race on the republican side. >> and just to clean something up, i just was interviewing norm coleman speaking for mitt romney, his foreign policy speech today, he said that president obama has no military experience and should not be countermanding the generals. we should point out mitt romney has no military experience. >> that's true. nor did the president who launched the war in afghanistan ten years ago, president bush. here's what's interesting. it's going to be very difficult for republicans to make national security an issue against this president. at best it's neutral. a lot of people might see an advantage for president obama. >> given what he's done with osama bin laden, what we've done with awlaki and the whole war on terror. >> the republicans don't have any great enthusiasm to keep the decade war in afghanistan going
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with a very uncertain future. >> david gregory, be sure to watch "meet the press". who do you have on sunday? >> we're we're going to be live in chicago. rahm emanuel and paul ryan from chicago. chicago's got their ideas festival next week and we'll be excited. i'm not running in the chicago marathon unfortunately. >> you could do that, too, on top of everything else you're doing. joe biden and everything else this week. david gregory, a man for all seasons and all marathons exactly ten years ago, president bush sent the united states into battle into afghanistan to hunt down al qaeda and their taliban hosts. in retaliation for 9/11. >> on my orders, the united states military has begun strikes against al qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the taliban regime in afghanistan. >> a decade later, we have now lost 1686 american troops.
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14,342 more have been wounded. we have spent $338.8 billion at a rate of $7.8 billion a month. nbc's atia abawi is live in kabul. at irk a, what are the lessons now and what is the mood among the troops you've spoken to? >> reporter: it depends on where you go and who you talk to. the majority of troops here in afghanistan know that they have a mission to fight. just a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago before the september 11th anniversary we spoke to u.s. airmen here in kabul. many of them say that they've been on various deployments, they're tired and exhausted, but they still believe in the mission. they say they've made achievements in afghanistan. they wish the american people could see they've made progress. they point to the fact there hasn't been another attack like the attack that we saw on september 11th since america came to afghanistan. and they say that they want to finish the mission that they started.
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>> and at the same time, when you talk to the troops they have to have a feeling certainly those who have returned have a feeling 33% told the pew interviewers in this recent poll that they don't feel the wars in iraq and afghanistan were worth it. that must be a terrible emotional burden for those who have sacrificed so much. >> reporter: absolutely. and it's a very sobering figure when you look at those figures. and when you actually see the u.s. troops here in afghanistan, you do see people who have been on multiple deployments and they are tired. they've seen their brothers in arms die on the battlefield. they've gone through it in iraq and afghanistan. but you're also seeing younger soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors, people who were kids when september 11 and when the war in afghanistan started. so that's why you get the different perspectives. you get the people who came in 2001, who understood what the mission was when it first started. you have other people who don't really know why it began. so that's why we get varying
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viewpoints from varying people that you talk to. but for the most part, the majority of the people that i've talked to and various operating bases will say they know why they're here and they want to complete the mission. >> the morale of the american military always front and center. thank you very much, atia abawi on post in kabul 20 years after she accused then supreme court nominee clarence thomas of sexual hair asment in the workplace, forever changing public attitudes about job discrimination towards women, anita hill. professor hill is now speaking out two. decades later, even though she lost that confirmation battle against thomas, she has no regrets. >> i could not be happier than i am right now. because i know that that testimony, no matter whatever anyone says and no matter who sits on the bench today, i know that that testimony was not in vain. >> ruth marcus is a columnist
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for "the "washington post"" who along with me and other journalists covered those hearings. what a weekend that was. this was before cable for the most part, before explosive sexually explicit hearings on the hill had ever taken place. you had joe biden as the chairman of the judiciary committee, strom thurmond, arlen specker taking on anita hill and damaging himself. >> he accused her of committing flat-out perjury. >> and at the same time teddy kennedy, who because of his personal situation back then was not the best advocate and felt constrained and didn't go to her defense. >> it was a remarkable weekend that lasted until the wee hours of monday morning when it finally was gavelled to a close. and i think a lot of us were just pleased to get out of that room. because you really sat there and listened to the testimony.
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and it was so emotional. and you just felt slimed, really, by some of the details that came out. >> and when i say precable, this was on the network. wall-to-wall coverage until midnight saturday night. tom brokaw was anchoring our coverage. we were all up there. this was an unusual event to say the least. >> everybody who was around then watching was old enough to watch was just mesmerized by it. because you had on the one hand then nominee now justice thomas, who was angrily denying saying he couldn't possibly imagine what he could have done. this was entirely fictitious. and that he'd rather take an asass sin's bullet than withdraw. and then you had anita hill calmly saying, yes, this happened. here's why it happened. here's why i didn't speak out about it at the time. and there was no way to reconcile these two. >> she said she'd take a lie detector test and they wouldn't
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permit -- what happened was actually the polling by saturday night, he had counter acted her claims sufficiently with the audience out there. and the polling overnight showed to the senators that they did not want to proceed with this. and so sunday they wrapped it up without calling more witnesses. >> yes. and i think in the end i think the reporting that's happened since and actually i thought the weight of the evidence then was on her side. but it's one of those even though it's 20 years, it's one of those episodes that still has the power to divide people even today. >> but it did have the power to unite people. there's one good thing that came out of this. >> well, maybe three. >> three good things. >> i met my husband. >> at the hearing. >> at the hearing. in fact, i called him the weekend the story broke. and he was luckily out of town. because there was an investigation of who had leaked it. and he called me back pretending not to know anything about it. and now we have two beautiful children. so i owe it --
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>> there's a wedding picture with john. >> with a little bit more hair. sorry, honey. >> and two children later and a lifetime together. so there's one good thing that came out of those hearings. >> at least one. >> really the first good thing i've heard that came out. >> thank you, andrea. >> ruth marcus as always. thank you. professor anita hill will be joining us live next wednesday, october 12th right here on "andrea mitchell reports". woman: saving for our child's college fund was getting expensive. man: yes it was. so to save some money, we taught our 5 year old how to dunk. woman: scholarship! woman: honey go get him. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
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who helped successfully end the country's civil war. that is documented in the film "pray the devil back to hell". >> we stepped out first and did the unimaginable. >> it sent out a signal to the world that we the liberian women we are tired of the killing of our people. we can do it again if we want to. >> and we welcome this year's nobel peace prize winner, lay ma bali. the author of the book" mighty be our powers, how sisterhood, prayer and sex change add nation at war. thank you so much for joining us. this must be such an extraordinary day. where were you and how did you react when you learned that you had received the nobel? >> i was honored. and thank you, andrea, for having me on your show. i was on the the red eye flight from san francisco to new york and about to take a flight to africa tonight.
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as i was on my flight, by the time we landed in new york by 6:50 i decided to put my phone on. put the phone on because my sister had done surgery yesterday. and i needed to find out if she was out of intensive care. then i saw all of these text messages but they were all vague. yippee, congrats. i saw one that said nobel nobel nobel. congratulations, my friend. i knew you would get it. i cried. and i have been sitting by a guy who i didn't know for like five hours from san francisco to new york. and then i turned to him and says, "sir, i won the nobel prize. i have to share the news with someone". he looked at me. did a double take. because i was all rumpled up. someone took their blackberry and went to the "new york times" and saw the three photos and
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look at me and say yes, that's right. so then i started hugging all these white men on my flight that i didn't know. >> this is the most amazing story. it's so human. i heard you speaking at "the daily beast" at tina brown's lunch this year. you are so amazing. because what you did, you were mothers and women. and you basically said to the regime, to charles taylor, we are sick of being raped and attacked. we will not have this for ourselves, for our daughters. and you all dressed in white and surrounded the pal as and just demanded justice for women. >> yes. definitely. 40 years of rape, 40 years of havoc, 40 years of forceful conviction for our children. we have gotten to the place where death was better than life. and we felt like as women of liberia we needed to do something to change our lives and stepping out to protest the war was the only thing that we could do at that point. sometimes i tell people it was the insurance policy that we
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were trying to sign for the lives of our children. >> how did you have the courage to go up against the soldiers, the troops, the men? they were all men in charge. >> well, i often say to people, anger is very fluid. when you are angry you have two options. you put it in a better container and it comes out violence or a good container it comes up peaceful. we took our arrange as women were really angry. because we were angry we decided to take on the men. and in our anger, taking them on, we were able to do what we had to do. by taking them on wasn't something that we were worried about because we have been fighting for 14 years and there was no fear left in us. if you tell a group of people for so long there's nothing that is left but resistance to the terror that you have used on their lives. >> and profoundly, one of the lessons and certainly the nobel committee wants this lesson to be absorbed by the world, you
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brought together christian and muslim women in a nation, in a region which has been torn apart by racial strife as well as religious and tribal strife. >> definitely. and i think now i say to people the the acknowledgement of the rule of women and also that no more should we allow religion, ethnicity, social class, political ideology to divide us as a people. we should look into the different things and find the binding factor and maximize it to the different communities. >> profound congratulations to you and what you represent and the whole movement and your book of course is mighty be our powers, how sisterhood, prayer, and sex changed a nation at war. thank you so much on this busy day with a red eye flight and all of your travels to come for spending time with us. >> thank you. thank you very much for having me on your show.
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it has been a pleasure and i'm humbled. thank you. >> we are humbled by your presence. thank you. what political story will be making headlines in the next 24-hours is next here on "andrea mitchell reports." [ male announcer ] nature valley sweet & salty nut bars... they're made from whole roasted nuts and dipped in creamy peanut butter, making your craving for a sweet & salty bar irresistible, by nature valley.
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it's a smart way to go. ♪ he did his foreign policy speech and he will show up at the values summit. >> this is one of the cattle calls that you have. >> this is important for romney in particular. >> you hit on it. in the 2008 campaign, one of the things he struggled with was social conservatives. he flip flopped on gay marriage, abortion, taking a different more conservative position running for president than when
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he ran for governor. his mormonism has not come up that much despite the fact that we have romney and john huntsman running. he needs to have the folks be at least neutral to him. he will not win all of their support. they may go to bachman or perry, but he needs them at least neutral. particularly if he decides to target iowa where social conservatives make a huge chunk of the electorate. >> if he were to neutralize them, he could make a play for iowa and knock rick perry out. >> that's the debate they are having. do you play in iowa? the race is probably over like we saw for john kerry in 2004. >> our time is over. have a great weekend. >> that does it for us for this edition and the week and remember to follow the show online and on twitter at mitchell reports. in for tamron hall, we have a look at what's next,richard.
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>> in the next hour, we are following several developing stories. the justice development blocks alabama from enforcing tough immigration law while the government tries to get it overturned. plus, for the first time we are expected to hear a police interview with dr. conrad murray about the final hour of michael jackson's life. >> the latest into the investigation of a missing 10-month-old baby. the parents are not being cooperative. planted the same... ♪ ...harvested the same... ♪ ...and roasted the same as our other premium coffees. ♪ it only makes sense it would taste the same. so, try it for yourself. buy a pack of 100% natural starbucks via® ready brew. we promise you'll love it or we'll send you a bag of starbucks coffee. it's the starbucks via® taste promise. look for it at starbucks stores and where you buy groceries. i took some steep risks in my teens.
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i'd never ride without one now. and since my doctor prescribed lipitor, i won't go without it for my high cholesterol and my risk of heart attack. why kid myself? diet and exercise weren't lowering my cholesterol enough. now i'm eating healthier, exercising more, taking lipitor. numbers don't lie. my cholesterol's stayed down. lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. it's backed by over 19 years of research. [ female announcer ] lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems and women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications, or if you have any muscle pain or weakness. this may be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. [ man ] still love that wind in my face! talk to your doctor. don't kid yourself about the risk of heart attack and stroke. if lipitor's been working for you, stay with it. lipitor may be available for as little as $4 a month with the lipitor co-pay card. terms and conditions apply. learn more at lipitorforyou.com.
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terms and conditions apply. living with the pain of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis... could mean living with joint damage. help stop the damage before it stops you with humira. for many adults with moderate to severe ra, humira's proven to help relieve pain and stop joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure.
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before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your rheumatologist how you can defend against and help stop further joint damage with humira. i'm richard louie for tamron hall. developing news on the controversial new immigration law. the justice department is asking an appeals court to block enforcement of the law described as the arizona law onst steroid. a federal judge let major portions go into effect last week and justice correspondent pete williams joins us